In Finland the government recently introduced a scheme whereby 2000 unemployed people would receive an unconditional income of £478 a month. Initially, it sounds like a utopia, but the experiment is real and the selected families will receive the guaranteed sum for 2 years. The results so far are incredible: the scheme is not only [...]

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin muzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.” [...]

What do you think of when you hear the word “folklore”? Stories, myths, festivals, songs, dance, masks, riddles, crafts, beliefs… All of these and much more are comprised in the term folklore. The word – literally meaning “the learning of the people” (Folk-Lore) – was coined by William J. Thoms in 1846. It refers to [...]

Winston Churchill famously said, “We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give”. When we speak of volunteering today, we often think of people who have “more”, an abundance of knowledge or resources, sharing with those who we consider to have “less”. However, if we look at [...]

When I was a child I was a fan of Science-Fiction books. I remember especially some classics such as the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, and books written by Van Vogt, Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein or Philip Jose Farmer, just to mention a few. While reading those books I was dreaming of the future. [...]

Part I – The Human Being or the Machine? The technological advances of the last decades have drastically changed our lifestyle, so much that it is hard to recall how life used to be in the past. What Did human beings do with their time before Youtube, Facebook, Twitter? How did people live before status [...]